Cataclysm
by hyacinthian
Summary: All that's left is the beautiful and treacherous disaster. [JWR]


A/N: This was unbetaed, so all mistakes are mine. And I kinda suck at writing _Crossing Jordan _fic, so it probably sucks at everything. Other than that, the basics. _Crossing Jordan _doesn't belong to me. And it's kind of angsty. And assumed Jordan/Woody. So, anything up there not your cuppa? Should leave. Other than that, read and enjoy.

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He'd always thought of her as Ophelia. She was fucking beautiful, but there was an air of death that seemed to linger with her. He had always liked Hamlet. Avenging his family. All of his actions seemed so…noble. All he wanted was to achieve something that noble in his life. And all he'd managed to do was fuck up royally. And now? He was degrading her, and killing himself. The awkwardness between them had escalated, mutated to the highest point of tension. He wanted to tell her the truth, tell her that he loved her, and he knew that she didn't want to hear it. Sometimes, it seemed so elementary. He loved Jordan, and Jordan needed to be loved. _But life doesn't work that way._

So on his birthday, he found himself in a bar, dousing his insides with hard liquor, drinking away the years, the tension, and the pain. He wanted to drink away every patronizing comment his family had ever made about him, and his life, and the future he could have had in Wisconsin. All the alcohol managed to do was drag up every heartbreak, every romantic moment with Jordan, the smell of her hair, the taste of her skin. He wanted to shove something in his brain to make him forget. Nothing was going to happen between them, and the sooner he realized it, the better they'd be.

She'd found him, and ordered beer, and sat. She hadn't uttered a word, just sat, and observed him. He felt the eyes on him, and he ignored it, shook it off. There was no reason for her concern, for her care, and he didn't want to accept it. He didn't want to acknowledge it, to know that she cared for him too. It would only make things worse. To know that she could like him to, and to know that she was too scared to do anything, that was worse than knowing that she didn't care for him at all. So he just drank.

And then, before he could stop himself, he leaned over and kissed her. The kiss was anything than what he'd expected. It was bruising and rough and filled with need. The alcohol blurred his mind, and his memories were grainy. His thinking was skewed. But she didn't stop him. So he continued. He was kissing her, drawing life from her, trying to rise himself from the mire of failure he was in. But he knew he was spoiling her. He was ruining her, destroying her, marking her with his failure, his defeat. Somehow she understood. This wasn't a relationship. Was that easier to accept?

He didn't care anymore. All his caution was scattered to the wind, along with whatever sanity or emotional stability he possessed. He needed her, and she finally allowed him access to her. Not her heart, but her. He didn't care. He was glad to get anything from her. He didn't remember whose apartment they visited this plague upon, who was paying the rent for the floor their clothes were thrown onto…he really didn't remember anything. Nothing except her reactions.

When he pressed her against the wall, she groaned softly and yielded herself to him. He was slowly unspooling, one inch at a time. And when she whispered something she shouldn't have, he ignored it. Dismissed it as something one would say in the throes of passion. But somewhere, deep within him, he knew that she meant it.

So when they kept doing it, kept having no-strings-attached sex, he thought nothing of it. After all, he's not addicted to her. He can't be addicted to her. So he'll say he's addicted to the sex. It's just sex.

But when he's drunk, and it's pouring outside, he's fighting every urge he has to stay outside. He wants to die. The rain is beating against him, heavy and hard, and he's feeling each collision, each firing synapse. And he doesn't want to ignore it. He needs this pain. He's fucking ruining her, and she's letting him. But somewhere inside him, he knows she broke him first. So he cries.

Somehow he ends up back in his apartment. He's dripping on the floor, but he doesn't care. And when he cries, his tears mingle with the raindrops, and he knows it's only a drop out of millions. Just like Jordan is one of many he's fucked. He tries to convince himself it's different. He loves her. But it doesn't matter. She couldn't give a damn anyway.

So when Lily criticizes what they're doing out of concern, he dismisses it. She says they're destroying each other. No. Her childhood destroyed her. He destroyed himself. They're just drowning themselves in their own pain. He thinks it's like a bloodied field after everyone's been killed. There's nothing left but the beautiful and treacherous disaster.

* * *

_Oh emm gee. Clicketh the shinieth button?_


End file.
